In case you don’t know the Minitel was an astonishing French Video Teletext community system with terminals all around the nation. As a pre-internet system, it stayed in well-liked utilization for a few years, reserving journey tickets, and disseminating information for a few years (in reality up till 2012). The Minitel terminals due to this fact are prime targets for {hardware} hackers and tinkerers. The Miniplay is an unimaginable growth of a recreation cartridge for appropriate Minitels!

Constructed round a DIN plug, these satisfying round cartridges comprise a well-recognized ATmega328p which makes use of a {hardware} serial connection to speak to the Minitel. There isn’t any USB on board, however the ISP header is damaged out, so connecting this as much as the Arduino IDE is fairly trivial. “Videotex” video games can then be developed and there are a few instance video games over within the challenge repository.  Additionally within the repository is a few helpful details about the compatibility of Minitel terminals as some don’t have the proper energy provide to the DIN connector. Nonetheless, don’t concern; in the event you occur to have an incompatible Minitel there are workarounds to energy the cartridge from an exterior supply.

Lastly, we’re struck by simply how pleasing a cylindrical cartridge with a DIN connector is. We will’t consider another methods which have used this way issue however we predict maybe extra ought to! We hope to see a group construct up round these Minitel terminals, creating new video games and respiratory new life into this superior classic {hardware}.